


We Know Love's a World Above this One

by Diaryofanarcissisticgayman



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Aliens, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Scientists, Alternate Universe - Space, And Harry is a big pink Sasquatch with his normal face, Bressie is Niall's synth, But this is less angsty than my standard fare, Did I mention that it's extremely AU?, Everybody is more fucked up than meets the eye, Liam is his android, Louis is a biologist, Luke Ash and Cal are an aviation crew, M/M, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, There are Cyborgs and Androids, Very AU, You've never regretted that before right?, despite the tags, just trust me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-06 12:23:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12817446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diaryofanarcissisticgayman/pseuds/Diaryofanarcissisticgayman
Summary: “Oh, please.” Louis scoffs. “We’re all the same, humans. We see something new, and we want to conquer it. Climb it, catalog it, own it, kill it, fuck it- It’s all the same thing. Lust. A need to dominate. To assert the will of these soft, squishy bodies over something outside of them. It’s a biological drive.”“And you say you’re capable of feeling.” Niall mutters. “Why do you always do that? Reduce everything to chemicals and urges?”“Because we’re animals, Niall.” Louis says, lowering his tablet. “Nothing more, and nothing less. That’s not an insult. I’ve devoted my life to the study of biological organisms. Life itself is my religion. But to think we’re anything above or beyond the things I study is nothing more than arrogance.”“You’re a cynic.” Niall says with a small smile.“But I’m not wrong.” Louis says with a shrug.“No, I don’t think you are.” Niall agrees. “So, if that’s what you think, why do you do this?”“Same reason you do.” Louis grins. “To fuck a whole new world."





	1. Chapter 1

Waking up from hypersleep is supposed to be a calm and soothing experience, like entering a dream almost as much as it actually is waking up from one. They’d prepared him for it in his training courses, even had him test it a few times to see how well his body could adjust to the forced stasis. It’s supposed to be soft and warm and renewing.

Niall had yet to experience it this way outside of training. No, because, unfortunately for Niall, Louis Tomlinson was the biologist he always ends up working with. Nothing about Louis Tomlinson is renewing or warm or soft, except his skull, Niall suspects.

There’s no way he’s all there in the head.

Niall wakes up exactly how he’d feared he would when Louis had grinned down at him so maliciously, pressing the button that sealed Niall into his pod and knocked him out of consciousness against his will. It’s not that he didn’t want to participate on the mission. Quite the contrary. He had just been told his biologist would be someone else this time, only to find out it had been an elaborate prank pulled by Louis with a gorgeous bloke Niall would have loved to have along in place of the evil little demon.

There’s a wet splash against his face, sudden and cold that sends his heart rate spiking as his lungs go into overdrive trying to compensate for the water in his throat. His panic reflex kicks into overdrive, and Niall flies forward, choking, barely making it over the side of the pod in time to razz all over Unit L-one-four-M’s shoes. He’d meant to aim for Louis, had resolved to do so in his last moment of conscious thought before he’d gone under, but Louis must have read his mind and ordered Liam, the name Louis had given the android in a rare act of humanity, to stand on the side that he usually goes on. Poor synthetic bastard.

To be fair, Louis has a method to his madness, most of the time. Waking from hypersleep may be soothing, but that’s because your brain requires a bit of time to boot up properly. It’s a slow process that can take hours, if the recovering body is left to their own devices and the hypersleep was for an extended period of time. Louis’ method is as crude as it is cruel, but it’s also incredibly effective at getting the body to adjust right away.

Life or death level panic causes adrenaline to pump through the body at an incredible rate, jump-starting the brain’s systems and making the unfortunate victim alert in a moment. It’s got Niall far enough along in just a few seconds that he can flip Louis off behind his head when he throws up for the second time in a row.

Louis just laughs uproariously and slaps at Liam’s hand when the android tries to comfort Niall with a hand rubbing at his back, saying, “Leave him alone. He’s just being a baby.”

“I hate you so much I might literally kill you.” Niall grunts out, glaring at Louis out of the side of his eye while wiping the vomit off his mouth with one silk sleeve. “You- You were supposed to be on another mission.”

“Are you okay, Niall?” Liam asks gently, sliding his hand over Niall’s back now that Louis has backed up out of range of Niall’s arm. He learned after last time, when Niall clocked him and left a purpled bruise over his eye for weeks.

“I’m fine, Liam.” Niall mutters. “What happened to Bressie?”

“He is on the lower decks, level C-fifty-nine.” Liam says, his eyes going blank as he interfaces with the ship’s computer. “He is working on preparing one of the rovers for planetfall, Niall.”

“You used a bloody android to seduce me?” Niall groans. “How?”

“You’d be amazed what I can do with a few hundred credits and a good programmer.” Louis grins wickedly. “You can make them act human for a bit, with the proper settings. They’ll even lie if you do it right. But you can’t make it last long, because their programming overwrites it.”

“Why?” Niall sighs.

“So you’d be in a good mood before this mission.” Louis says with a shrug. “You’re always nicer when you’ve gotten laid or think you’re going to.”

“Then shouldn’t you have let him seal me in?” Niall huffs, taking the hand Liam offers him and allowing himself to be pulled out of the pod. “Let the fantasy last until after I woke up, maybe?”

“If I didn’t get to wake you up, then you’d be a drooling sack of potatoes for hours yet, and that gets so boring.” Louis chuckles, leaning against a console. “Besides, I couldn’t let you go in without knowing that it was me. You’d have had good dreams, then.”

“I don’t dream in hypersleep, Louis. You know that.” Niall says, standing up straight and stripping off his top to exchange for the one Liam is offering him. This one is tighter, mostly spandex and a Kevlar-based polymer for added support. Niall prefers the silk sleep-clothes.

“Hey, hey, hey- Don’t bother putting that on.” Louis says, waving at him. “Lose the trousers and your pants, and I’ll do my physical.”

“I have to pee, Louis!” Niall whines. “And I’m hungry!”

“You can use the loo, but food has to wait until after the physical.” Louis says, rolling his eyes. “Liam, show him the way.”

“I know how to get there, Liam.” Niall waves the android off when he starts to lead him. “These bloody ships are all the same.”

 

“Everything appears to be in working order.” Louis hums, taking off his latex glove.

“Can I put my pants on now?” Niall sighs.

“Only if you want.” Louis grins, waggling his eyebrows. “On the other hand, I’ve got lubricating gel out already.”

“I’m aware.” Niall says with a shudder, his arse clenching at the memory of Louis prodding at him and making alien probing jokes.

“You’re no fun.” Louis pouts.

“No, I’m just not attracted to you.” Niall counters. “I’m incredibly fun when I find someone I want to shag.”

“But we have-” Louis starts before Niall slaps his hand over the brunet’s mouth hard enough to make his own fingers sting.

“We do not talk about that!” Niall snarls, baring his teeth in warning. “That night never happened, and we agreed on that!”

Louis mumbles something into Niall’s hand, and Niall decides he’s glad he didn’t understand it. Whatever it is, it’d probably bring on even more of a horrible flashback to that night, induced by too much alcohol and not enough human contact.

“If you ever mention that again, I will cut out your tongue.” Niall warns him, removing his hand.

Louis opens his mouth, then shuts it again, repeating the process four more times before he sighs and asks, “Lunch?”

“On the obs-deck?” Niall asks.

“We’ve got full run of the ship.” Louis says with a shrug. “If you want to carry a tray of food up sixteen levels, I won’t argue.”

 

“I didn’t mean for you to make Liam carry it!” Louis hisses, swatting at Niall’s arm.

“He offered, Louis.” Niall argues. “Didn’t you, Liam?”

“Yes I did, Niall.” Liam says with an approximation of a smile that makes Niall think of a puppy more than a human before turning to Louis and adding, “I did offer to carry the tray, ba-”

“Unit L-One-Four-M, revert to this user’s primary username.” Louis commands immediately, flushing brightly on his cheeks. Niall absolutely does not want to know what Liam was about to call Louis.

“I did offer to carry the tray, Louis.” Liam tells him, tilting his head in confusion.

“Besides-” Niall says, trying to change the subject quickly. “He’s carrying yours. What’s the difference?”

“He’s my assistant. I get to make him do whatever I want. You do not.” Louis says with a firm voice and a pointed look, daring Niall to crack a joke.

“Well, I don’t know which one has been assigned to me for this mission, so-” Niall hums, trailing off as he watches a few androids scuttle by, carrying arm loads of equipment.

“It is unit Eight-R-Three-Five-Five, Niall.” Liam tells him happily, glad for being able to contribute. “The one you know as ‘Bressie’.”

“I am going to stab your eyeball out.” Niall growls at Louis, who sprints off at top speed, cackling at the top of his lungs.

If Niall’s legs weren’t so wobbly still, he’d give chase, even after Liam pleads, “Please do not stab him, Niall. I do not wish to have to restrain you for attempting to harm my primary user.”

“Good luck with that.” Niall snorts, pinching his fingers all together and drawing them apart with electricity crackling between them, thanks to his gloves. “Got an upgrade. This suit comes with a built-in droid-dropper.”

“I do not like that term, Niall.” Liam says with a frown.

“I know, Li.” Niall says with a gentle smile, pinching his fingers back together to stop the electricity. “How long has he been awake?”

“Three-hundred-and-thirty-nine hours, Niall.” Liam answers.

“Two weeks?” Niall questions. “He usually wakes me up earlier than this. How long until planetfall?”

“Forty-eight hours, Niall.” Liam says with a smile. “Are you very excited, Niall?”

“You’ve got to stop that. Saying my name every time you talk to me.” Niall sighs. “Louis has been messing with your settings again, hasn’t he?”

“He has adjusted my settings, Niall.” Liam nods.

Louis prefers to keep the synthetic lifeforms dumb, turning their artificial intelligence down to its lowest setting so that they don’t come across ‘too human’. They follow commands and don’t ask questions and are so overly polite that it gives Niall a toothache. Louis never fiddles with Liam once Niall brings him back up to normal, but he always does whenever they’re left alone.

Niall had asked him about it once, and the only answer he’d received was, “I’m a biologist, Niall. I deal in real life, not synthetic.”

He’s sure there’s more to it than that, especially since Liam is the only one that Louis adjusts, but he never presses the issue. He knows more about Louis than he’ll ever want to, and less than he’ll ever need to.

“I’ll take care of you once he gets to sleep, yeah?” Niall tells him, patting Liam’s arm. “Get you back right.”

“Thank you, Niall.” Liam beams.

“Why did he wait so long to wake me up?” Niall asks as they resume following Louis’ path through the hallway that leads to the observation deck.

“I- I do not know, Niall.” Liam says after a moment, his eyes going white. “It appears that large chunks of my memory of the last three-hundred-and-thirty-nine-hours have been erased. I can access the security archives, if you would like, Niall.”

“No, it’s not important enough for you to do that.” Niall says, waving the thought off. He really doesn’t need to see whatever Louis has been up to since he woke up, no matter what it is, and he has a fair few ideas already about what transpired.

Louis is fairly predictable.

That’s how Niall knows to duck when he walks through the door, and, dumbed down as he is, Liam knows to stall for just a moment. The projectile, a balloon filled with some sort of liquid Niall would rather not think about, hits the wall behind his head and pops without doing any damage.

Niall, for his part, doesn’t even blink. Liam follows with the same dopey expression he usually has in this state, ignoring Louis’ pouting as they sit down on one of the benches in front of the massive wall of glass, six feet thick and flanked by numerous ports that deploy nanites to repair any damage caused by debris. It’s always Niall’s favorite place on the vessels.

The view is spectacular this time, the ship passing by a gas giant on its sub-light course to their destination. It looks a lot like Saturn, flanked by dozens of moons, and some spectacular rings, though these cross over the planet in perpendicular rings, making a sort of X shape. And the coloration is completely different, a deep emerald in color, accented with bright swathes of silver and gold.

“You gonna join me?” Niall asks, looking over his shoulder to find Louis still pouting in the corner, scuffing his non-standard-issue trainers against the floor, one after the other.

“I guess.” Louis sighs dramatically, taking his tray from Liam as he passes by and folds himself over the bench, straddling over it so he can eat from between his thighs. He glares at the side of Niall’s head until he reluctantly mirrors the position, which makes Louis finally smile and dig into his ‘food’.

All of their meals onboard the ship are actually the same nutrient fortified soy-based substance, shaped and textured and flavored to match a variety of foods. They aren’t spectacular approximations, except for a few things that are pretty decent. Niall prefers the chips, loading an entire plate full of them and dousing them in ketchup and seasoning.

Louis prefers to eat the pretend meat. He claims it tastes mostly like the real thing, but Niall disagrees. Then again, Niall didn’t grow up in the UK like Louis, so he’s not used to boiled meat.

“We’ve been passing that one for most of the day.” Louis nods out the window. “It’s the outermost actual planet to the star system. Ours is the second one from the star.”

“Five planets, two outer planetoids, right?” Niall asks around a forkful of chips.

“The planetoids were puny.” Louis says with a grimace. “That’s why I didn’t bother waking you up until now. They made Pluto look interesting.”

“Were you bored?” Niall asks, feigning indifference, as if he were only half paying attention while he stares transfixed at the planet outside. Over the last few missions, Niall has learned the best way to make Louis come out of his shell is to pretend you’re letting him vent something out without actually listening to what he’s saying.

“Too busy to be bored.” Louis says with a shrug Niall sees out of his peripheral. “The ‘Lovebirds’ have been providing an interesting set of variables.”

“The ‘Lovebirds’?” Niall prompts when he realizes Louis isn’t going to let whatever is bothering him out right now. 

“I’m sure you’ve heard of them.” Louis hums. “That, like- Throuple. The pilot, the aeronautical engineer and the paratrooper?”

“Oh!” Niall says, the switch kicking in his brain. He did remember hearing there were some pretty unusual aspects to this mission’s team. Normally, that just means Louis is coming. That really should have been his warning. “Those three. The tall Aussies. What’s up with them?”

“Well, they have to have a specially made hypersleep pod, first off.” Louis tells him, leaning forward with a gleam in his eyes. “It’s triple wide, to let all of them sleep in the same place with each other. That’s not that weird, you know, because couples’ pods aren’t that uncommon. But if you separate them and put up the barriers, their vitals plummet. They can sense that they’re not together, even in suspended animation, Niall, and their bodies have a dramatic physical reaction.”

“That’s romantic.” Niall says with a soft smile.

“Romantic?” Louis scoffs. “It’s not romantic, it’s fascinating, Niall! Their bodies are so deeply in tune with each other that the pheromonal shift from being separated is enough to drop their heart rate and brain function. They literally perform at peak levels around each other, but barely survive apart.”

“And how is that not romantic?” Niall asks, drawing his eyebrows in together.

“Whether it is or isn’t romantic isn’t the point, Neil.” Louis groans, waving his hand in Niall’s face until the blond tries to bite it and it gets withdrawn. “The point is that it’s provided a lot of insight into the benefits and detriments of partnered hypersleep travel.”

“Hard to believe that sweet Liam here is the one with a circuit board instead of a heart, and you-” Niall sighs, trailing off.

“Excuse me, Niall, but that is incorrect.” Liam says kindly, leaning into Niall’s field of vision. “My innards are actually made out of a gelatinous, highly-conductive-”

“Stop.” Niall orders, placing his hand over Liam’s mouth. “It was a metaphor.”

“Not a very good one.” Louis scoffs, rolling his eyes. “The heart has nothing to do with the emotions you’re implying I’m incapable of feeling.”

“It wasn’t an implication.” Niall snorts. “I’ll flat out say it. You’re more of a robot than Liam.”

“I am not a robot, Niall.” Liam frowns, his lip jutting out in a pout. “Robots are non-intelligent mechanical constructs designed to-”

“I know, Liam!” Niall groans. “Go stare out the window and stop listening.”

“Okay, Niall.” Liam agrees, walking around the bench to follow the instructions.

“What’s your problem?” Louis questions. “You’re usually the nice one with him.”

“He’s usually not dumb as a rock.” Niall argues. “Except when he gets left alone with you, but I don’t think that’s a can of worms you want to open, so-”

“Point and match.” Louis hums. “What do you want to do after this?”

“Guess we should start waking the others and getting ready for planetfall.” Niall says with a shrug.

“Tomorrow.” Louis says, shaking his head. “Don’t feel like dealing with a bunch of new people yet.”

Niall doesn’t either, really. Louis is more than enough to handle right now.

 

“How’s that?” Niall asks, looking up from the screen to see Liam’s reaction.

“How’s what, Ni?” Liam questions.

“Oh, thank fuck.” Niall sighs, pressing the button that stops the signal that lets whoever is on the console mess with Liam’s settings.

“Language.” Liam chides.

“Good to have you back, Liam.” Niall says with a soft smile. “I tried to recover whatever it is that’s been erased for you, but I don’t have the necessary access. Sorry.”

“It’s not a problem.” Liam says with a shrug. “Many areas of my memory are blocked off. I don’t have any sentimental attachment to my memories like humans do.”

“You and Louis really are made for each other.” Niall mutters.

“Correction, I was made for Louis.” Liam states. “Louis is biological, so he wasn’t made for any- Oh. You were using a colloquialism.”

“Yes, Liam, I was.” Niall snorts, shaking his head. “And my point stands.”

“Did you change my hair color?” Liam asks, catching a look at himself in the reflective surface of the console screen.

“You like plants so much, so I figured you’d like some green.” Niall grins. “It’s just a little streak.”

“Change it back.” Liam says with a grimace. “Louis won’t like this.”

“I think he will.” Niall hums, kicking his feet up on the console.

“Niall.” Liam says sharply. “Change it back.”

“Very demanding for someone who’s supposed to be following my orders.” Niall chuckles, examining his fingernails to show Liam that he has no intention of being commanded.

“I am not a toy, Niall.” Liam grits out from between clenched teeth. “And I don’t have to follow your orders, as you are not my primary user. Louis is my primary user, and his desires and commands are my sole concern. Change it back, or I will be forced to lock you out of user status altogether.”

“Fine.” Niall sighs, booting back up the console. “Link up.”

“Thank you.” Liam nods. Niall begins the process, only to have to stop and sigh when he resets Liam to his default, colorless hair and the android growls out, “Niall!”

“I have to reset you to factory standard in order to change your color at all, Liam. You know that.” Niall reminds him.

“Oh. Yeah.” Liam mumbles. If he had blood, he’d probably be blushing. “I forgot.”

“It’s not like you to forget that sort of thing, Liam.” Niall says once he’s found the specific folder in Liam’s database that contains his standard coloration settings. Androids come basic and colorless, allowing their users to program in their skin, eye and hair colors, as well as styles for the latter, which can be grown and shrunk at the push of a button. Their facial and body structures can also be slightly modified, if desired. “What’s on your mind?”

“I am- Uneasy about this mission.” Liam says quietly. “The circumstances surrounding our dispatch were unusual and hasty. We have very little information about this Twist-zero-two.”

“If we had more information, we wouldn’t need to be going on this mission at all, would we?” Niall asks, leaning back in his chair again. “That’s the whole point of what we do. We gather information and make decisions based on it.”

“It’s different this time.” Liam says, shaking his head. “Please disregard me, Niall. You need your rest. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day. We will be completing our journey and preparing for planetfall.”

“Li-” Niall tries to press him further, to figure out what’s bothering him.

“Have a good rest, Niall.” Liam says quickly, standing up and striding past him out of the room.

Honestly- Made for each other.

 

“No, Louis.” Niall says firmly, putting himself in the path of the biologist. “Not with these three. I need the people who are going to be taking us down to the surface in a good mood.”

“You’re no fun.” Louis pouts, tightening his grip on his jug of water. “Liam, move him.”

“Bressie.” Niall hums, bringing his own assigned android and guardian into the mix. Bressie steps out from behind the pod and stands next to Niall, arms folded over his chest as he waits for further instruction.

“Um- I do not believe that I can do what you’re asking, Louis.” Liam says, dropping his head down.

“Oh my god, fine.” Louis says, rolling his eyes. “You can do whatever you want with the lovebirds. Can I at least do my job with the others?”

“These three are the only essential personnel for planetfall.” Niall says with a shrug. “If you want to piss off the others, that’s your business.”

“Come on, Liam. We’ve got eight patients to get bring back to life.” Louis says with an evil grin that makes Niall think of a very old book.

“Have fun, Doctor Frankenstein.” Niall snorts as Louis skips off, cackling. He really is insane.

“Bressie, you know how to end hypersleep, yes?” Niall asks, looking at the console.

“Yes I do, Chief Communications Officer Horan.” Bressie says with a nod.

“Yeah, for time’s sake, I’m going to need you to condense that from now on.” Niall sighs. “One word.”

“Yes I do, chief.” Bressie amends. Niall was thinking it would be his name, but he can work with that.

“Go ahead and bring them out of it then.” Niall nods.

Bressie sets about going through the various sub-menus necessary to end the process of hypersleep, stopping the flow of drugs meant to put the body into stasis and instigating the drugs that will restart their systems. It’s a complicated series of tasks, and, while Niall knows enough about it to manage the procedure in an emergency, he doesn’t want to do anything wrong. Better to let an android handle it.

“The tank will open in approximately thirty seconds, chief.” Bressie tells Niall, taking his hands away from the console.

“Do they have any synthetics assigned to them?” Niall asks.

“No, chief.” Bressie says after his eyes go white for a minute. “It appears that they do not require any extra assistance from any assigned synthetic lifeforms. Their coordination with each other means that they only need occasional help from the workforce androids. They specifically requested not to have any assigned unit, actually.”

“They must know each other pretty well.” Niall says quietly, watching the lid lift off of the pod.

“It would seem so, chief.” Bressie agrees. “According to their records-”

“Hey, now-” Niall chides. “Don’t go digging into their personal business. That’s not how I do things.”

“I apologize, chief.” Bressie nods along. “May I also apologize again for the ruse that Chief Biological Officer Tomlinson forced my participation in?”

“Don’t mention it.” Niall huffs. “Seriously, don’t ever mention it again. I’m embarrassed enough that I fell for it. I don’t erase memories from your kind, but- Please never mention it again to anyone. Especially me.”

“If that’s what you desire, chief.” Bressie says with a smile. Niall thinks it’s meant to be reassuring, but it just makes him blush at the memory of all the flirting and suggestive whispers and one kiss that had knocked Niall’s socks off. He’s not sure what kind of program could do that, but- It had.

Niall will not have sex with the synth. He will not.

He is not that lonely.

He’s snapped back to reality by the first of the lads in the pod moving, taking his arms from where he’s got them wrapped around the boys on either side of him and stretching them over his head. The name stitched into his silk shirt reads ‘A. Irwin’. Niall hasn’t actually met any of them, but he’s heard of Ashton Irwin before. He’s the youngest, and probably most talented, jet-shuttle pilot in the research branch of the Terran Exo-Planetary Exploration Agency.

That must mean that ‘C. Hood’ and ‘L. Hemmings’ are Calum Hood and Luke Hemmings. 

Luke Hemmings is a name Niall is familiar with through numerous stories from their peers of his exploits. It’s hard to forget about someone who apparently jumped out of a jet-shuttle completely nude minus his jump pack, made it through a crack in a cliff barely bigger than a person, and then flew back into the shuttle in under ten seconds. Niall sincerely hopes alcohol was involved in that.

Calum Hood is more of a mystery to Niall, but he has heard a bit from the people he still talks to in the training program. Calum came up through the same program Niall did, the technical skills program, but he did it much faster. He’s young, but a genius when it comes to mechanical work. Niall assumed that he’d go into the Synthetic Lifeform Development Program, but apparently he went into aerospace engineering and mechanics instead.

But Niall has learned not to let much surprise him anymore when it comes to the people in this program. It takes a very special kind of person to do this work, and most of them have more than their fair share of quirks.

“Water.” Ashton croaks out, rubbing at his eyes with one hand.

“Bressie, go see if you can get a glass of water from Louis before he uses it all.” Niall orders, watching Bressie nod and run off. 

He’s surprised Ashton is so coherent already. In his experience, without Louis’ method, most people take much longer to say anything rational. According to Louis, in the one instance where he managed to say anything before he was doused, his first thought was ‘Biscuits?’

It’s not incredibly surprising for Niall.

“Water.” Ashton croaks out again, clenching his hand around empty air.

“Just a moment.” Niall assures him over the sound of a loud screech. It’s only the first, so Bressie should be able to get some water still.

“What was that?” Ashton asks, blinking owlishly.

“The biologist. You’ll meet him later.” Niall snorts. “And you’ll thank me.”

“Here, chief.” Bressie says, reappearing with a glass of water.

“There you go.” Niall says gently, taking the glass from the android and passing it over to the pilot. “Drink up.”

Ashton does take a couple gulps, but then he takes another, his cheeks puffing up with it, and he does something Niall really doesn’t expect. He tilts Luke’s head back and presses their lips together, pushing the water into Luke’s mouth and down his throat like a baby bird.

Okay, that managed to surprise him.

Calum gets a less gentle treatment after Luke hums and blinks awake settling his head on Ashton’s shoulder. Like Louis, Ashton upends the rest of the glass over Calum’s head, making him shoot up and gasp.

“Fucking Christ!” Calum gasps around a throaty rattle, bolting up and coming face to face with Niall. “What the fuck, mate?”

“Wasn’t me.” Niall says quickly, holding his hands up in surrender.

“Over here, love.” Luke murmurs, running the backs of his fingers over Calum’s cheek.

“Why do you do that?” Calum whines, turning and burying his face in Ashton’s neck.

“Because you take ages.” Ashton chuckles, combing his fingers through Calum’s sopping wet hair.

“You’re nicer to Luke.” Calum huffs, though it doesn’t seem like he minds that much when he links his fingers with Luke’s.

“Luke needs it gentle. You need it rough.” Ashton hums, nosing at Calum’s cheek.

“Okay!” Niall cuts in loudly, trying desperately to fight the blush on his cheeks. “I need you three to sit up properly and face forward, please.”

“Get it over with, doc.” Calum sighs, lifting up and rubbing at his eyes.

“Not a doctor.” Niall mumbles, taking out the little pen-like device Louis gave him. He clicks one of the buttons, turning on the light at one end. “Follow the light with your eyes.”

He follows the pattern that Louis had taught him, up and down, left and right, over and over at different angles to make sure letting the tablet in his other hand analyze the results for him. He’s not qualified to judge any of it himself. It comes back positive on all three, so Niall clicks off the light and moves on to the next portion.

“Tell me if you can hear anything when I do this.” Niall orders, holding the pen next to Calum’s ear. Calum nods, so Niall moves to the other ear, repeating the process on the other two. Again, no problems. “That’s all I’m really qualified to do, but let me take you three down to one of the exam rooms and get you set up for Doctor Tomlinson.”

 

“I do not like that man.” Luke grunts out, sitting across from Niall and bringing down his tray roughly.

“He’s not that bad once you get used to him.” Niall says with a shrug.

“He’s a lecherous prick who got way too much fun out of fondling ours.” Luke growls out.

“Okay, yeah.” Niall agrees, because he can’t really disagree with Louis’ history. “But it probably wasn’t so much a sexual pleasure as a sadistic one from watching you squirm.”

He’s not ace at defending his best mate, but Louis doesn’t give him much to defend, so he doesn’t feel awful about it.

“I take it you know him?” Luke asks, cocking an eyebrow while he tucks into a plate of soy based spaghetti and meatballs.

“Better than I’d like.” Niall nods. “We’ve been doing this for a long time, the two of us. Seem to get stuck together on every mission.”

“How long?” Luke questions.

“Longer than you.” Niall snorts. “If I’ve heard correctly, this is your first far-range mission.”

“It is.” Luke confirms. “But we’ve done six short-range missions.”

“I’ve done seven far-range.” Niall tells him. “Twenty short. Louis has me beat in both by several.”

“Holy shit.” Luke breathes out. “That means- Your family-”

“Been dead for about a hundred years.” Niall nods along. “My parents and brother and nephew and all them, that is. Never had the other kind. As for Louis- You should recognize his last name. His mother invented those pods we spent the last decade and a half travelling in.”

“But that was- Hundreds of years ago. The twenty-two-hundreds.” Luke argues.

“I told you that he’s been doing this a while.” Niall hums. “That lecherous prick is one of the original members of TEPEA.”

“Okay, now I know you’re pulling my leg.” Luke huffs, scowling and turning back to his spaghetti. “There’s no way he’s old enough to be a founding member.”

“Louis has only spent about fifteen years awake since TEPEA began. His rough age is thirty-three or so.” Niall explains. “He’s always on a mission. Always. As soon as we get back to Earth, he ships back out. Generally does a short-range or two, then another long. He’s spent almost the entirety of the last three and a half centuries in hypersleep.”

“So- He’s my boss then.” Luke sighs.

“Nobody is anybody’s boss here.” Niall says, shaking his head. “Not for the humans, anyways. The thirteen of us form the council, and, in order to keep things level for the vote, nobody has any more or less power than anybody else. In emergency situations, certain people among us will take charge, but nobody is actually in charge, you know?”

“Even though you and Louis have more experience?” Luke asks.

“Doesn’t matter out here.” Niall says with a shrug. “We all have our own function here, and none of us need to go getting in anyone else’s way. The three of you are basically the only ones who actually have to work together regularly, though Louis and I will probably be working with you quite a bit. Most of the time, everyone keeps their distance from each other unless you’re on base.”

“Doesn’t sound very friendly.” Luke says quietly.

“We’re not here to make friends.” Niall tells him. “That’s not to say we don’t become friends, but we’ve got a very short timeframe to do some very important work, so most people are too busy focusing on the tasks at hand to put in a lot of face time with the other members of the council. Eighteen months sounds like a long time, but it isn’t, really. Not when you’ve got to determine the viability of a planet for colonization.”

“Guess transportation isn’t exactly the most involved process for this.” Luke mutters.

“It’s more important than you’re giving it credit for.” Niall hums. “You might actually be the busiest group out of all of us, because you’ve got to focus on the atmospheric optimization effort and all of the individual council members’ efforts. The three of you will have a lot to do.”

“Are you just saying that so I’ll feel important?” Luke asks.

“Not at all.” Niall grins. “Louis is going to run you guys ragged. So will I. Comms towers don’t just set themselves up, you know? The geologist and mineralogist will also have you going in and out with the mining operations. You’ll shuttle samples back and forth, and, in my experience, the paratrooper is the one Louis goes to when we have trouble collecting the more- Difficult specimens.”

“What do you mean ‘we’?” Luke asks.

“I’m the one with the least to do.” Niall says with a shrug. “The communications programs mostly run themselves, once I get things up and running. So- Louis generally drags me out on his research expeditions.”

“Are we going to get eaten?” Luke asks with a gulp.

“I’ve only seen like- Three people die on missions.” Niall says with a gentle smile. He doesn’t mention that two of them were, in fact, eaten. The other one was a paratrooper who flew into a cliff. If Luke is as good as Niall has heard, he’ll be fine. “Just be smart. It’s not that hard to survive, honestly.”

“Easy for you to say.” Luke says quietly, mutters it under his breath in a way Niall is pretty sure he isn’t supposed to have heard.

“Where are the other two?” Niall asks.

“They have to check in with the plane.” Luke snorts. “They always insist on going over it first thing, and I’m always too damn hungry to go with them.”

“But, like- I’d think you’d want to be together?” Niall questions.

“Just spent the last fifteen years on an interstellar road trip with them.” Luke says, waving a hand at Niall. “I could use the space for a minute.”

“But- Aren’t you-” Niall starts, trying to figure out the right way to phrase it.

“Together?” Luke offers. “Of course. But that doesn’t mean we all spend every second together. That would be suffocating, spending all of your time around the same two people constantly. Splitting off from each other is pretty common for us.”

“I guess that makes sense.” Niall mumbles, embarrassed at his assumptions.

“Let’s put it this way-” Luke hums. “Did you always spend all your time with the last person you loved?”

“Never been in love.” Niall admits, dropping his eyes to his plate of chips. “Wouldn’t have joined up if there was someone back home for me.”

“Oh.” Luke says softly. “Sorry.”

“Is it true you flew through a hole two meters across in nothing but a jump pack?” Niall asks, hoping for a change of subject.

“No.” Luke says with a bright blush. “It was jet-boots and gloves. The jump pack would have burned my ass off.”

 

“It’s- Pink.” Niall mumbles, eyes glued to the planet outside of the window on the observation deck.

“Didn’t you read the dossier?” Louis asks.

“Do I ever?” Niall snorts. “Did the dossier say the whole planet looked like a flamingo?”

“I mean- It looked a little more- purple- because of the water and the distance, but- Yes.” Louis says with a nod. “Sixty percent land-mass. Very little mountainous terrain. Three visible planetary satellites, each roughly half the size of Earth’s moon. No digital frequencies, signaling no intelligent life. And a proclivity towards magenta fauna.”

“Boring.” Niall waves him off. “People won’t like the color. It’ll be harsh on the eyes up close.”

“Or maybe it’ll be softer up close.” Louis hums. “Besides, the human body can adapt remarkably to-”

“Shut it.” Niall grunts out, slapping his hand over Louis’ mouth. “We only have an hour before planetfall, so it’s not nearly enough time for you to start your whole spiel. They’re about to launch the base, so pay attention.”

“Nothing I haven’t seen before.” Louis mutters, turning back to the window.

“Neither are dicks, and yet you fondle every crew member we ever get.” Niall says with a roll of his eyes, bumping their hips together. “Try not to piss off Luke anymore. You know how bad you are with a rifle or a jump pack. We need him.”

“Do you honestly think there’s some big, bad monster down there on that requires a rifle to handle?” Louis hums. “Because it’s hard to imagine much of an apex predator being on a planet that looks like candy floss.”

“Oh, yeah.” Niall scoffs. “Because that fucking thing with the six mouths and a body temp over two-hundred degrees Celsius on the planet with mountains made out of gemstones is the only exception in all of the universe. A total fluke. No other pretty place could possibly have anything terrifying. That’s how xeno-biology works. Anywhere that looks non-threatening must be filled with organisms that are as well.”

“Okay, point taken.” Louis says with a shudder. He’s probably remembering getting swallowed by the damn Sextoral (a simple, if suggestive, name of Louis’ choosing once he’d been extracted). He’s lucky Niall always insists on wearing their exo-suits outside of base, no matter how familiar they’ve become with the terrain or how optimal the atmosphere.

It’s the only reason he’d been able to kill the Sextoral, since the plasma rifle was useless against something with blood that hot. His suit had provided him with enough heat resistance, maneuverability and strength to help him rip open the jaws that had swallowed Louis and pull him out.

“Just for the jinx you put on us, the first time you get attacked, I’m just letting it take you if you can’t get yourself out of trouble.” Niall says firmly.

“Aw, but-” Louis pouts, stroking a finger down Niall’s arm. “Doesn’t the time we’ve spent together mean anything to you?”

“The first and second, now.” Niall growls out, slapping Louis’ hand away.

“Planetary Field Base Twist-two-one will launch in- Sixty Seconds.” Announces the ship’s onboard navigation and deployment program.

That’s Niall and Louis’ home base, the central base for the project. They’ll travel to the other six that get set up, eventually, but it’ll be the central hub for most of the operations, on a plains region in the northern hemisphere, based in a temperate climate similar to the European region of Earth, according to the data from the drones they’d launched as soon as they’d come into orbit. Other bases will be set up in more remote climates, scouting locations for atmospheric optimization towers, after Niall visits each of them to set up the Comms tower, in order of importance.

Right now, the focus is on setting up the main campus and central hub for operations. Getting everyone suited to the different gravity and chemical makeup of the planet’s atmosphere is also a priority. The planet wouldn’t have been chosen if it couldn’t support human life, but that doesn’t mean the atmosphere is the same composition as Earth’s. It has higher concentrations of Oxygen and Methane, while it has a much lower concentration of Ozone and Carbon Dioxide. 

The towers will be able to optimize the levels, but it takes a long time, and they have to keep going continuously for decades. Niall’s team will only be there for eighteen months’ worth of Earth time, so they’ll just have to adjust over the course of the first few days through exposure.

It’s a shitty few days, usually, but the increased oxygen in the atmosphere will actually make them feel better this time, until they level out. The planet may look stupid, but at least it won’t leave him feeling like shit warmed over for the next week like some of the others have.

“Planetary Field Base Twist-two-one, launch- Initiated.” The program sounds, before a loud groan rattles the ship.

Something that looks like an old rocket, straight out of the twentieth century, exits out of the side of the ship, drifting slowly through space until it passes outside of the jets’ range. Bright white light flares out of the back, and then propels the rocket forward at incredible speed, streaking towards the planet.

As the rocket breaks apart in the atmosphere, it’ll expand, unfurling a parachute nearly a mile wide to increase drag and slow the descent rate. The payload, a tight ball of pre-programmed nanites, will separate on touchdown, absorbing the chemicals in the air and soil, leaving any organic life untouched, as it spreads and builds on itself, following the built-in blueprints to create the barracks, recreational areas, and lab space required for the initial landing crew. 

It’s a fairly impressive process, much better than the one that had still been in use during Niall’s first few missions, where raw materials were launched and the crew had to stay onboard the ship while synthetics, which were less efficient one-hundred-and-forty years ago, built the bases. Niall never liked that one much. AI may not have been as advanced back then, but it still felt cruel to force them to work like that under those conditions.

Once the rocket finishes burning through the atmosphere, Niall turns from the window, unable to see anything else of note.

“You ready to see it up close?” Niall hums, walking away with Louis quickly scurrying to follow.

“I’m ready for a new adventure.” Louis chuckles. “I have that feeling. The one that tells me that this one is going to be something special.”

“We don’t want ‘special’, Louis.” Niall scoffs. “Special means difficult. I just want this to go as smoothly as possible. No surprises.”


	2. Chapter 2

There’s a mixture of emotions in the air when Niall strolls up the ramp to find his place in the shuttle. There are a few greenies that he can see, men and women literally green with anticipation of the descent. Niall hates greenies. 

It’s not the inexperience he has the problem with, but the vomiting that generally occurs. Niall is a sympathetic vomiter, and, even though the exo suits have nanites built into them that instantly consume, transform and store the vomit, among other waste, for excretion, it’s still gross and it still feels awful.

That’s why Niall has learned to sweet talk his way with the piloting crew, getting himself a seat up towards the front.

Unfortunately, that’s not always a guarantee.

“Sorry.” Calum says with a shrug that dislodges the strap of his dungarees. “Nothing doing. Ashton has pilot, Luke has co-pilot, and I need the seat behind them because I get motion sickness.”

“You- You get-” Niall stammers. “You’re a spacecraft engineer that gets motion sickness?”

“They’re generally not moving when I’m fixing them.” Calum says with a roll of his eyes.

“But- You’re- Those two-” Niall says, trying to formulate a proper, coherent thought in the face of this information.

“We weren’t grown in a tube, you know.” Calum says, folding his arms over his chest and tapping at his shoulder with his multi-tool, formed as a wrench at the moment. “We don’t all share every characteristic. You might’ve noticed, for one thing, I’m brown and they’re both very, very white. Annoyingly white, as some- me- might say.”

“Okay- That’s not what I meant.” Niall sighs. “I just meant that it surprises me that someone whose boyfriends are a pilot and a paratrooper would get motion sickness, because people in relationships like to share their passions, or so I hear.”

“They tried.” Calum chuckles. “But then I almost blew up a hangar bay on our first mission, because I was too busy vomiting to control the jump pack Luke put on me, and I flew right into a fuel tank the size of this jumper. Only thing that saved everyone is that Luke managed to catch my pack and pull it off before I hit. They can share the daredevil shit with each other. We’ve got plenty of other things to share.”

“Alright, well- There’s two seats behind the pilot and copilot, yeah?” Niall questions. “Can’t I have the other one?”

“That one already claimed that seat.” Calum says, pointing the tool at some tall, gangly bloke. “The operative, I think. Figure I don’t have any right to deny someone who works directly for the executives.”

“There’s an operative on this mission?” Niall asks, arching an eyebrow as he watches the bloke.

He’s lithe and skinny, a feral smile painted across his features as he orders around some synths outside of the ramp. Niall takes an instant dislike to the fluidity of his movements, too practiced and calculated.

“Niall!” comes a shout of his name, drawing his attention away from the operative and towards a puffing, red-faced Louis Tomlinson, dragging a large chest behind him. “Get your giant, bloody synth to finish putting this onboard for me!”

“Hey- No!” Calum grunts out, stepping forward. “All gear is stored under-”

“Not mine.” Louis says fiercely. “It’s too delicate for your pilot to smash up on entry. My stuff gets put in here and strapped in, so figure out a place, and put it there.”

“Not on your-” Calum starts to growl, but Niall puts a hand on his shoulder and shakes his head when he looks over.

“Just trust me on this-” Niall mumbles. “He can make your life hell on the surface. Buy yourself some leeway now. He’s got a mind for pranks and a laboratory the size of a footy field that’ll contain every species possible to catch on that planet over the next eighteen months. Unless you want to find some freaky critter in your sock drawer, just give him this.”

“In case you didn’t notice, there’s no room.” Calum sighs.

“His case has magnetic anchors. You can wedge it between some seats.” Niall offers. “You can force him to put it below, but you will regret it eventually. I can only do so much to control him.”

“Excuse me?” Louis scoffs. “Control me?”

“Louis, shut your fucking mouth and let me negotiate on your behalf, since you’re so painfully bad at it.” Niall says sharply.

“Someone’s knickers are in a twist.” Louis grumbles.

“Yours will be in a second.” Niall growls, narrowing his eyes. “Because I’m going to pull them up over your head.”

“That would require for me to be wearing any.” Louis smirks. “Go on, then. Convince him.”

“Luke was right. I don’t like him either.” Calum mutters, turning back towards the innards of the shuttle. “If you can find space, then you can keep his stuff in here. But try to keep in mind that there are going to be thirteen people, and seven of you have assigned synths. Every seat is taken. You’re going to be taking space from somebody because it can’t be out in an aisle. If we have to bail out, it can’t be in the way.”

“I’ll figure it out.” Niall nods.

“Have at it.” Calum says, shaking his head and heading towards Luke and Ashton in the cockpit.

“Good. Horan, get my things.” Louis hums, clapping his hands together.

“Do you even try to pretend not to be a prick?” Niall sighs, looking back over at Louis.

“I don’t see the point.” Louis says with a shrug. “People will figure it out either way. Why should I care?”

“Because I’m the one that has to sit there and get your arse out of the frying pan before they throw you in the fire.” Niall huffs, tapping the button on his tablet that alerts Bressie he’s needed.

“Well, I’m not a prick to you.” Louis actually has the gall to say.

One day, Niall is going to kill him.

“What do you need, chief?” Bressie asks, coming up the ramp.

“Really?” Louis asks with a roll of his eyes. “Chief?”

“He came up with it himself.” Niall shrugs. “As long as it isn’t a mouthful like ‘Chief Communications Officer Niall Horan’, then I wouldn’t care if he decided to call me ‘Daisy’. Bressie, please take Doctor Tomlinson’s equipment and lock it down between those four seats. That’s where the four of us will be sitting.”

“Why do I have to sit with you?” Louis pouts. “I wanted to sit with the tall one over there. He’s kinda-”

“He’s an operative.” Niall says stiffly, watching Bressie move the container like it’s nothing more than a box of tissue paper.

“Well- How do you like that?” Louis groans. “The one decently fit bloke on this mission that isn’t shacked up, and he’s a ponce.”

“Hey!” Niall growls.

“You’re non-sexual to me.” Louis says with a shrug. “Like that weird rock-slug thing with the eyes. The one we found on the last planet. You know what I’m talking about.”

“I genuinely cannot stand you.” Niall says with a roll of his eyes. “What’s he doing here?”

“Hell if I know.” Louis admits. “But I think I do now know why the dossier was so light. A resource allocation operative showing up where there’s no info about any resources to allocate? I smell a secret project.”

“He doesn’t have any say over my operations, but you should watch out.” Niall says quietly. “They never seem to like you.”

“That’s because they can’t lord power over a founding officer.” Louis smirks. “It’s good to always be big man on campus.”

“Like you’d know.” Niall snorts, patting the top of Louis’ head. “Go get in your exo-suit.”

“Launch isn’t for another half an hour!” Louis whines.

“And it always takes you too long to wrestle your way into it, so go get started now.” Niall hums. “Where’s Liam? You’ll miss launch if he doesn’t help you.”

“He’s off saying goodbye to his plants.” Louis mumbles. “You know his little rituals.”

Niall doesn’t say out loud that he thinks it’s cute that Liam does that, that he talks to each of his plants individually. Niall has tried to trip him up more than once, moving his plants around, but Liam always knows each one and addresses it by the name he’s given it, no matter where they’ve been moved. It’s a quirk of his that Niall has never seen in any other synthetic, though the existence of their quirks isn’t totally rare.

Niall has met some that love music, some that paint or sculpt, some that like to seek thrills and jump off cliffs or fight with xenomorphs, aka alien species. Some of them even like sex, despite the fact that physical pleasure is complicated at best for androids. Most synths are like most people, content to go about daily life with nothing more than their job as their purpose, and some find another purpose beyond the role they’ve been designated.

Niall doesn’t think there’s much difference between sentience and artificial intelligence, honestly. It only seems like a few of the ones who have it put it to any real use.

“Well- let him finish, and then get in your suit. If you don’t launch with me, then I’m going to hide your stuff somewhere. Bury it again, maybe.” Niall grins.

“Total fucking asshole.” Louis huffs, storming off so that Niall won’t carry through on his threat.

The next half hour is a flurry of activity as planetfall ticks closer, people and synthetics alike making their way onto the shuttle and taking their seats. The operative strolls on with only a minute to spare, taking the seat across from where Calum is sitting.

Louis arrives in so little time that the ramp has started to retract, forcing Liam to pick him up and sprint just to get inside in time. The airlock hisses shut behind them as Liam drops Louis on his arse.

“Please take your seat, Louis.” Liam hums, walking forward and sitting across from Bressie with a peaceful smile on his face. He straps himself in, feet up on Louis’ luggage like Bressie, and sets his hands on his lap, waiting.

“Le con.” Louis mutters under his breath, taking the seat across from Niall.

“I knew teaching you French was a mistake.” Niall sighs. “Be nice. He saved you an hour or two of searching around for your shite.”

“It’s his bloody fault we were so late.” Louis huffs, glaring at Liam. “Had to spend all his time saying personalized goodbyes to his marigolds.”

“That is an error, Louis.” Liam chuckles. “I did not bring any marigolds. Marigolds have been extinct since the twenty-fourth century. I do, however, have some lovely Zinnias. Very rare.”

“Shut up, Liam.” Louis sighs, looking back over at Niall. “He does this on purpose. I’m telling you.”

“Good job, Liam.” Niall grins, reaching forward to pat the synth on the leg.

“Strap in.” Ashton calls back through the shuttle. It’s redundant, seeing as a moment later the safety harnesses spring out and wrap tightly around all of the passengers without anyone doing a thing. “Launch in ten, nine-”

The program takes over for him from there, counting off as the shuttle is sealed off in the base-ship’s airlock.

Three

Niall grins, gripping onto the bracket locked around his chest.

Two

His chest starts to hum with excitement, radiating out until his extremities are curling in tight and his hair is standing on end.

One

His lungs gulp deep, swallowing all the oxygen they can hold in preparation.

Because he loves the way it punches out of him on launch, the way it feels like he’s being squeezed over the entirety of his body. Gravity is a giant’s fist, wrapping around him tight with no intention of letting it go until it slams him towards the planet’s surface.

Niall knows they’re accelerating towards the planet at several thousand miles per hour, nearly twenty, but that’s nothing compared to the speed they travelled here at. Faster than light jumps are the only reason that they can even make it these distances it takes to move between star systems. Compared to that, orbital entry speeds are nothing.

That said, with all the jumps he’s made, he’s never felt anything like the rush involved in planetfall.

He’s tried his share of stimulants, professionally and recreationally. He’s been fed fruits on foreign planets that make alcohol irrelevant. He’s jumped off of mountains, and nearly been eaten by alien monsters, and had sex in zero gravity.

Nothing, not one experience, has ever gotten his heart pumping like this.

So, when Louis groans out, “Oh, what the fuck is he doing,” just after they’ve felt the shockwave that accompanies atmospheric entry, Niall’s smile grows even wider.

Luke is making his way back through the shuttle, down the path in the middle between the seat groups. His lilac exo-suit is impossible to mistake, even with the helmet on.

Niall hits the emergency release on his harness with one hand, and hits the button that makes his helmet slide out with the other. It’s sealed into place by the time he meets Luke in the airlock.

“You know what you’re doing?” Luke questions over the communicator in their helmets, barely audible over Louis’ ranting that Niall has long since learned to tune out.

“I’ve been doing this since before your great-great-grandfather was a sperm is his father’s balls.” Niall hums. “Try to keep up, princess.”

Ashton and Calum both cackle in Niall’s ears from across the ship, and Niall catches Luke blushing through the visor.

“You’re on, short stuff.” Luke huffs, punching the button that seals the airlock off from the rest of the shuttle. “Just do yourself a favor and go limp when the door opens.”

Niall does just that, releasing all tension in his body enough to drop him to the floor, if the floor had still been there. Fact is, the floor is about ten miles away by the time Niall would have hit it.

He launches his jump pack only a moment after Luke does, and it’s like the entry all over again, Niall’s laughter ringing in his own ears with the blond’s as they rocket forward.

It doesn’t take too long to catch up with the shuttle once it starts to slow down for landing, the tracking program in their helmets leading them towards it as they trade off who’s closest in their race.

Luke likes to play it dangerous, weaving around the blasting engines of the ship, so Niall decides to show him up, flying over the top of the shuttle, despite the fact that Luke yells in his ear not to be a fool.

His magnetic boots are already locked in place by the time Luke dips up to his level, and Niall waves at him before releasing the locks and dropping off the side.

He changes the lock-on display to show him the location of the base, rather than the shuttle, and follows the coordinates.

It takes another five minutes or so to reach it, but Niall is the first to land, dead center in the landing zone outside of the base. The dome barrier launches once the shuttle is in range, sealing the base within a series of nanites barriers capable of filtering radiation and protecting the residents.

Niall takes his helmet off once he propels himself outside of the landing zone, finally taking his first real look at the surface of the planet that’ll be his home for the next eighteen months in Earth time, or year, here.

Louis was right in that the color isn’t so startlingly bright, once you’re down in it. It’s a deeper pink, magenta, that gives everything a soft glow like a sunset, even though the solar body is high in the sky for the moment. The grass-like plants that form the plains they’re settling on are almost pastel in softness, set off by the wall of brown and fuchsia in the distance that signal the start of a truly impressive forest of trees hundreds of feet high, which cover most of the continent they’ve decided to start on.

It’s muggy, but not unbearably so. It is, however, enough to get him to lift his arm and run the program that retracts his exo-suit into the pack on his back, leaving him in his standard operations uniform. The blue clashes with the environment, so Niall dials it down from an intense cobalt into a more palatable robin’s egg color that seems to fit better, in his opinion. He has to wear blue, because it marks him as the communications officer, but he can control what specific wavelength the nanites that make up his suit reflect.

“You’re insane.” Luke says, coming up behind him.

“You haven’t seen anything, yet.” Niall hums. “Let’s get started unpacking everyone, yeah? We’ve got a world to discover, here.”

 

“How do you always manage to get a larger laboratory with each successive mission?” Niall asks, looking around inside Louis’ base of operations. It’s the size of a bloody aircraft hangar, easily bigger than three footy fields. “We don’t even know that you’ll need this kind of space.”

“But I could.” Louis hums. “There could be all manner of megafauna on this planet, Niall. I need places to store specimens. Plus, they didn’t give us a doctor on this mission, so part of the expanded space is for me to run the basic medical facilities.”

“I hate when they make you the doctor.” Niall sighs.

“Well- They sprung for some new med-pods, so my job is essentially just to control those and give basic physicals.” Louis says with a shrug. “I couldn’t afford all the extra work on my plate.”

“Maybe there is a god, after all.” Niall says thoughtfully, holding his chin.

“How about you fuck all the way off, yeah?” Louis asks with a faux-chirpy voice before scowling at him. “Don’t you have your own station to be setting up?”

“Bressie is giving it a final run-through now.” Niall explains, tapping his iView device, a little half-visor that covers his left ear and extends around to his eye, where he’s watching and listening to Bressie’s analysis. “The synths they launched before us to do the setup did everything perfectly, as far as I could tell.”

“Must be nice having the easiest job out of everyone.” Louis mutters, stabbing at his tablet with his finger.

“Fuck off.” Niall laughs. “You try being the translator, peacekeeper, communications director, and your assistant.”

“The very fact that you have the time to be my assistant is proving my point.” Louis says with a scowl.

“Okay, what is your problem?” Niall asks.

“You jumped out of the bloody shuttle!” Louis hisses, taking his little stylus and throwing it straight at Niall’s face. Liam catches it before it can reach him, and hands it back to Louis. “What the fucking fuck is wrong with you, Niall?”

“I wanted to have a bit of fun.” Niall says with a shrug.

“The last time you did that, you broke both your legs.” Louis grunts out. “You could’ve died. There could have been a cliff, or a storm, or some xenomorphic avian species out here. You didn’t know what was outside that shuttle, but you jumped out and ignored me begging you not to.”

“You didn’t seem to mind when Luke was going to do it alone.” Niall points out.

“Luke isn’t my best friend.” Louis mutters. “I’ve been doing this with you for so long that- That I don’t know how I’d do it without you, Niall. Act like I don’t have feelings all you want, but- I do. I love you, Niall. I’m not in love with you, or anything gross like that, but I care about you more than some random bloke off the street, and it might make me sad for a minute or two if you died. Plus, it would be very inconvenient.”

It’s the most human thing Niall has ever heard Louis say.

“It would set back our capacity for flora and fauna specimen collection by approximately- Forty-percent.” Liam says, eyes going white for the calculation.

“See?” Louis says with a strained laugh. “Liam would be sad too.”

“That is not what I said, Louis.” Liam mumbles, cocking his head in confusion. “I said that-”

“Tell Niall you will be sad if he does something stupid and gets himself killed.” Louis growls out, narrowing his eyes a Liam.

“I would be sad if you did something stupid and got yourself killed, Niall.” Liam parrots, looking over at Niall. “Though sadness is an emotional construct entirely-”

“Liam, go count how many tiles are in the containment areas.” Louis orders, cutting him off. Liam walks away without another word, stopping mid-ramble.

“You’ve been messing with him again.” Niall points out, narrowing his eyes. “You never do that once I put him back in there.”

“It was the only way to get him to stop talking to those stupid fucking flowers and help get me to the shuttle on time.” Louis sighs. “I’ll fix him later. Promise.”

“You’d better.” Niall huffs. “I don’t need to be going out into the field with you, and have him being this dumb. That’s how I end up eaten.”

“I will put him back!” Louis groans. “It’s just- Easier.”

“For you, maybe.” Niall grumbles.

“Yeah, maybe.” Louis whispers. “Go find something else to do, Niall. I have a whole list of things you, unfortunately, aren’t qualified to help me check out, and I want to get it all done before I retire for the night so we can start specimen collection tomorrow.”

“Fine.” Niall says, tossing his hands up in surrender. “Guess I’ll get settled into my flat.”

“Do not go outside the base.” Louis grunts out. “Let yourself get acclimated. An earth-like atmosphere, doesn’t mean-”

“Yeah, I know the procedure by now.” Niall waves him off. “I’ve done this once or twice, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“Only a greenie would have pulled what you did today, so excuse me if I’ve forgotten.” Louis mutters. “Try not to get yourself killed. Like Liam said, it would set back my research capacity.”

 

“We are three hours into colonization research for a new planet. How do you already look bored?” Ashton hums, sitting down across from Niall in the canteen.

“Shit doesn’t get exciting for me until the acclimation process is finished.” Niall says with a shrug, picking at his chips absent-mindedly. “To be honest, most long-range missions don’t even take communications officers anymore. It’s a post that can be handled by synthetics. Communications with Earth are impossible from here, because we can’t make transmissions travel faster than light, and, even if we could, we’re still over fifteen lightyears from Earth. It would take longer than we’ll be here for communication to go through. And my function as a translator could be served by any computer system or synthetic here.

“The only reason I get to still go out on them is that I’m a trained psychologist. Nobody hates each other enough yet to need me, and the excitement hasn’t worn off from landing enough for people to want to talk to me, so- I don’t have anything to do until I can go outside.”

“You’re a psychologist?” Ashton asks.

“Occasionally.” Niall nods. “I’m also a part time alien wrangler, and I dabble in communications. I’m a man of many talents.”

“Apparently.” Ashton chuckles. “Luke said you gave him a run for his credits out there.”

“I absolutely did not.” Luke grunts out, slamming down his tray next to Ashton, loaded with pastries and cakes and other sickeningly sweet things. But, Niall doesn’t really have any room to judge. He can only eat this stuff when it tastes like something deep-fried. “I said that he wasn’t talentless with a jump-pack, even if he’s stupid and crazy.”

“Don’t let him lie to you.” Calum says through a shit-eating grin, sitting down next to Niall. “He’s always a shit when he meets anyone he considers to be some real competition. It drives him crazy.”

“I could out-fly him any day.” Luke growls, his delicate face pulling up in a snarl as he looks out from under his loose strands of curling hair with eyes no wider than slits.

“Care to make a bet on that?” Niall asks with a smirk.

“Bring it on, short-” Luke starts.

“Cool it, princess.” Ashton hums, reaching up and brushing his knuckles over Luke’s cheek. “You’ll get wrinkles if you keep frowning like that.”

“Fuck off.” Luke sighs, though he releases all the tension in his face.

“Poor white people.” Calum giggles, peeling an apple with his knife. He has the right idea. Produce like that is one of the few things they have to eat that’s real, rather than manufactured. “You age like cheese.”

“I’m almost ten times your age.” Niall points out. “People are living to be two hundred without ever touching a cryo-pod. Age means nothing anymore.”

“You’ve got a line on your forehead.” Calum hums, swiping his thumb over Niall’s brow. “Stress does such bad things to your people’s skin.”

“Fuck off.” Niall snorts, slapping Calum’s hand away. “Don’t you three have work to be doing?”

“Everyone is already down here.” Ashton says with a shrug.

“The shuttle can autopilot the rest of the supplies down here, and it gives extra space for the synths so they don’t have to use their launch-pods.” Luke explains. “Every single one of them I’ve ever spoken to about it hates them.”

“Do you have an interest in synthetics?” Niall asks, popping a chip in his mouth.

“No.” Luke says flatly. “I have an interest in flying. I have an interest in music. I have an interest in fast vehicles, and diamond jewelry, and confections. Synthetics aren’t just inanimate, unthinking objects or hobbies. They’re-”

“Now you’ve gone and done it.” Calum sighs.

“People like you dis-” Luke growls. Or starts to, at least.

“I’m a proponent for synthetic rights.” Niall cuts him off. “I marched in Paris for synth rights before I joined up. I was arrested for a raid on Anima, when they were the main producer of worker synths. I was a personal friend of Olly Murs.”

“As in Oliver Murs?” Luke asks. “The one who ran for head of the Terran League?”

“Back when I knew him, he was just Olly.” Niall chuckles. “A headstrong law student with a heart too big for his chest and who could sing pretty well with a few pints in him. I met him right when he started the Synthetic Rights Campaign.”

“You just got immensely more interesting.” Luke grins. “You ever sleep with him?”

“Maybe.” Niall hums. “I’m not the type to kiss and tell.”

“And you’re boring again.” Luke sighs, waving his hand limply at Niall before he uses it to shove a cupcake in his mouth. “Don’t think we have to ask if you’ve slept with the little, crazy one.”

“Like I said, not the type to kiss and tell.” Niall says with a roll of his eyes, tossing a chip so it lands on top of another one of Luke’s cupcakes.

“That tells me everything.” Calum hums. “Were you top or bottom? He seems like a bottom, but- You do too.”

“What about a synth?” Ashton questions. “Ever had sex with a synth?”

“Have you seen his assigned synth?” Luke asks with a giggle, flicking the chip off his sweet. “He’s stupid if he hasn’t shagged with that one yet.”

“Assuming Bressie’s the type that enjoys that.” Ashton nods.

“You three are menaces.” Niall huffs, standing up from his seat. “Absolute bloody menaces.”

“And?” Calum asks, waving his hand for Niall to continue.

“And I look forward to working with you.” Niall laughs, taking his tray and walking towards the bin next to the exit. He means it. He just has to find something else for them to focus on.

 

Niall wakes with a gasp, cold overwhelming his senses as he shoots up off of his bed.

“Louis- What the fuck?” Niall screams, wiping at his eyes as the lights come on in response to him waking up, revealing the culprit.

“That’s for abandoning me all night so you could talk with the lovebirds about our sexcapade.” Louis says with narrowed eyes.

“I didn’t fucking tell them anything.” Niall growls out. “You think I’d ever admit to sleeping with you?”

“Don’t be a dick.” Louis huffs. “And get up. I need to check your vitals. A few people have been having reactions to the increased methane in the atmosphere.”

“Which ones?” Niall asks, removing the blanket and thanking the universe that he decided to wear pants to bed, even if they are sopping wet now, thanks to Louis and his jug.

“Nick, the operative. Perrie, the mineralogist, and Leigh-Anne, the virologist.” Louis counts off, pulling out his tablet. “Stand up. It can’t get a proper read on you like this.”

“So the lads are all fine then.” Niall nods, standing up.

“So far.” Louis tells him. “I’m not ruling anything out for delayed reactions. Especially for greenies. The other three are all on their first missions too.”

“They’re different.” Niall says, shaking his head. “They’re like us. They were born for this. Adventure is in their blood.”

“Methane is in their blood.” Louis says with a roll of his eyes. “A lot more than they’re used to. Adventure-lust isn’t an immune booster.”

“It’s not a lust.” Niall huffs.

“Oh, please.” Louis scoffs. “We’re all the same, humans. We see something new, and we want to conquer it. Climb it, catalog it, own it, kill it, fuck it- It’s all the same thing. Lust. A need to dominate. To assert the will of these soft, squishy bodies over something outside of them. It’s a biological drive.”

“And you say you’re capable of feeling.” Niall mutters. “Why do you always do that? Reduce everything to chemicals and urges?”

“Because we’re animals, Niall.” Louis says, lowering his tablet. “Nothing more, and nothing less. That’s not an insult. I’ve devoted my life to the study of biological organisms. Life itself is my religion. But to think we’re anything above or beyond the things I study is nothing more than arrogance.”

“So sentience means nothing?” Niall asks.

“Sentience is a fancy term for egotism and the privilege of opposable thumbs.” Louis counters. “We recreated it with a few billion lines of code. That doesn’t make us divine, and the ability to speak or create art or fly through the stars doesn’t make us better than a dog or hamster or housefly. It just means we won the evolutionary race on our planet, thanks to some weird appendages and a well-developed frontal lobe.”

“You’re a cynic.” Niall says with a small smile.

“But I’m not wrong.” Louis says with a shrug.

“No, I don’t think you are.” Niall agrees. “So, if that’s what you think, why do you do this?”

“Same reason you do.” Louis grins. “To fuck a whole new world. Get dressed. We’re going out to see this big ball of pink stink.”

“You’re wretched!” Niall says through a cackle.

 

“I should have known.” Niall sighs, scowling at the sight in front of him. “You always get me with this.”

“We’re not adjusted enough to go hunting for fauna. Flora will have to do.” Louis says with a shrug. “Besides, it makes him happy.”

“Louis!” Liam gasps, running up towards the two of them with a whole stalk of the tall, pink grass, roots and all. “Look at these root systems! They’re amazing!”

“Yes, yes. I’m sure they’re fascinating, Liam.” Louis waves him off, staring at his nails. “I need a manicure. Remind me to take care of that when we get back to base.”

“You’re not looking!” Liam whines.

“Oh my god, what- Oh.” Louis groans, turning into a murmur. “Those are interesting.”

“They grow like a web.” Liam hums, bringing it closer to show them. “It’s not individual roots growing in all different directions. They’re all attached in a grid pattern.”

“How odd.” Louis mumbles, leaning in close. “And the leaves? How does this benefit them?”

“That’s what’s really interesting!” Liam squeals. “The plant is rigid on the sides! The water the roots absorb travels up to the top, then filters back down to the bottom!”

“How does it release excess in order to keep from oversaturation?” Louis questions, squinting at the plant. “Surely the vessels can’t be that rigid. They must collapse if it takes in too much water.”

“Oh. Humans.” Liam mumbles. “Take out your tablet and take a look at the base of the blade, just above where it sprouts.”

“Pores?” Louis asks with a gasp once he’s followed Liam’s instructions. “Incredible!”

“I found these living around the base.” Liam hums, pulling out a vial containing some little, black specks that Niall can’t make out. “They wait by the pores and consume the excess water, which I have to analyze, but I believe collects pollen on its way out. I think that’s how they pollinate.”

“Incredible.” Louis repeats.

“You two are fucking nerds.” Niall sighs. “I’m going to take a look around.”

“Stay close.” Louis mutters, waving him away. “And have your plasma rifle armed. I don’t have any fauna coming up on the sensors, but I don’t want you to get taken off guard and be defenseless.”

“It’s been armed.” Niall grunts out. “You attract trouble, no matter what world we end up on. I know better than to leave myself unguarded when I go out with you. Liam, keep him alive.”

“That is my primary directive, Niall.” Liam says with a nod.

“Come on, big guy.” Louis hums, patting Liam’s shoulder. “Let’s go see if we can observe your hypothesis in action. I want to be the first one to make a major discovery.”

Competitive as ever.

Niall stands up and activates his jump pack, but waits until he’s used the force-pulse of his boots to turn it on, so it doesn’t risk starting a fire in the field. He keeps the burn level low, not wanting to go particularly fast, because he doesn’t want to go far. Louis isn’t wrong. Being by himself out here is problematic in that he doesn’t know anything about the local flora or fauna yet.

But the forest on the other end of the plains has been calling to him since he landed. It covers most of the continent, and the trees tower over the landscape. There are few mountains from what Niall could tell in the stratosphere, but he wasn’t paying much attention to geography, to be honest. But from the drone-gathered topographical maps he’d gone over with Louis over breakfast, the closest range is hundreds of kilometers away. 

The forest is the biggest, most interesting thing nearby, and Niall has felt it singing to him of adventure. It’s going to be where he finds whatever excitement he’s looking for on this planet. He just knows it.

There’s power radiating from the flora as soon as Niall lands near it, an almost irresistible note of something unknown that makes the adrenaline in Niall’s system tick up a few notches.

The trees look like a solid wall from a distance, but, when he lands in front of them, he can see there are dozens of meters between them. It’d be stupid to wander into it, even with his plasma rifle. The forest hasn’t been scanned by drones, because they aren’t supposed to push into it until next week, and Niall’s own personal scanner doesn’t have much of a range. If anything moves quickly, or has a significantly different biology than species from Earth and the other planets they’ve collected data from, he might not catch it in time.

Niall knows the psychology behind a death wish, and he knows he doesn’t have one. You can’t go on adventures when you’re dead. The simple promise of exploration to come should be enough for him at the moment.

It should be.

He sends a message to Louis, knows he won’t check it for a bit, and then he’ll have to come back. For now, Niall is free to step into the forest, so he does.

 

As it turns out, pink is an excellent color for a forest. Light filters through to the ground easily, even though the canopy extends so high. Niall doesn’t have to activate the torches in his suit to see, not that there’s been much to see within the kilometer or so that Niall has managed to walk through the forest.

Making his way in has been slow going, taking him nearly an hour to progress this far. The soil is loamy and soft, not as solid as he needs in an exo-suit. There’s also been no shortage of fauna for him to avoid, not wanting to step on anything. It took him longer than he’d like to admit to figure out that he’d have to propel himself from tree to tree with his pulse-gloves. 

Hovering with them would be another possibility, but Niall has never liked hovering. It’s too difficult to control. He could give Luke some competition in a race, but, if they were to challenge each other to navigate a certain distance in here by hovering, Luke would wipe the floor with him.

The leaves that occasionally drop to the ground are interesting, because, like the grass on the plains, they’ve got rigid edges. Almost sharp. Niall put one he caught out of mid-air in a specimen vial to take back to Louis later as a peace offering for being stupid and going into the forest alone. They fall fast, point straight down, since that seems to be where they’re weighted.

It startles Niall the first few times it happens, but he gets used to the sight after a while. It’d make for great rifle practice to shoot them out of the air, once he’s actually allowed to explore the area.

It’s when something else falls that Niall stops mid-flight, his senses going on high alert. It barely makes a noise upon hitting the ground, but, to Niall, it sounds as loud as a gunshot. It isn’t a simple leaf, or even a bit of bark, which Niall carved off a bit of for Louis as well right at the beginning, only to discover it was pulpy and spongy.

Whatever fell was solid, hard, and that means that it was likely dropped out of a tree by something, which means something is nearby. Niall brings his rifle up to eye-level with one arm, activating his scanner with the other as he scans the lowest level of branches.

A shadow plays tricks with his eyes, a shifting of light from branch to branch, but the scanner returns nothing. The hair on his neck is being paranoid, standing up with the sensation of being studied. There’s just a solid barrier of pink, rustling in the wind. Nothing moves besides the leaves.

After a few minutes of waiting, Niall drops his eyes down and picks up the object that had fallen, a shiver running through his entire body at the sight.

It’s a fang, long and curved and sharp enough that Niall knows it would be dangerous to handle without the armor of his exo-suit.

A fang, in and of itself, wouldn’t worry Niall too incredibly much. What makes him feel so uneasy is the hole punched through the thickest part by the top, and the vine pushed through it like a string.

Like a necklace or totem.

He slips it into a specimen jar, and then activates his jump-pack, risk of fire be damned. The trees may be tall, but Niall clears them in a matter of seconds, locking onto the signal from Louis and Liam’s location, and setting off towards them at a much faster pace than he’d approached.

Still, even as he lands, silently tossing the vials containing the leaf and bark to Louis, he feels the unnerving sensation of being watched.


End file.
